times after the foreigners began to come into the country, when the
Tokugawa house had fallen. His Majesty was hardly more than a boy,
and none knew who were the friends and who the enemies of the Son of
Heaven.[12] Your father believed that the great Saigo was right when
he withdrew to Kagoshima and took up arms against the new party that
had surrounded the Emperor, that had drilled a heimin[13] army, that
would take from the samurai the prerogatives that they had held for
a thousand years. He believed that Saigo was right, that the Emperor
was listening to evil councilors,--and he died fighting to restore
the older councilors to their places, and to give back to his own
class their ancient privileges. But after it was all over, and he had
yielded up his life for his cause and the great Saigo lay dead upon the
field, we who remained, and who suffered more than those who gave their
lives in battle, learned little by little how blind had been the fight
against the will of the Emperor, against the Era of Enlightenment and
all it means to Japan. And when at last I knew, I desired most of all,
Torao, that you should give to the Emperor and to Japan your life as
an atonement for your father’s mistake. You are going, by the grace of
his Majesty, to the front. Do not forget that your father’s spirit has
through all these years been waiting for you to make his atonement.”
Her voice, which had been throughout her long speech curiously
monotonous and inexpressive, so carefully had she maintained her
self-control under the strong emotion that possessed her, died away,
and she bowed once more to the floor.
“Mother,” said Torao, “I am thankful. It was of you and of your grief
in losing me that I thought as I came home. But if to you my going is
the fulfillment of a lifelong hope, then I go gladly, and my father
shall see that his atonement is made. The Son of Heaven himself has
said, ‘Duty is heavier than a mountain, while death is lighter than a
feather.’[14] If I do my duty, my death is nothing to be mourned.”
Little O Fuyu, lonely and desolate in the presence of the rapt
exaltation of mother and son, was shaking now with the sobs that she
could no longer control. The sun of her life seemed to be setting,
and here were these two talking of hopes fulfilled, of honor, of
atonement, of duty and death, with no word for her, or for the dear
baby whose life and well-being had seemed until now of such consequence
to the whole household. At the sound of her sobs Torao turned to where
she sat humbly behind him close to the threshold.
“Fuyu,” he said gently, “do not grieve. Mother will take care of you
and you of her, and soon you will be happy with our baby to live for.
I should not be worthy to be a father if I were not glad to make
atonement for my father’s error. And if I come back, how proud you will
be to show me the little one! Remember you are a samurai and the wife
of a samurai, and soon to be the mother of a samurai,” and he patted
her shoulder gently.
“Poor little O Fuyu San.” Go Inkyo Sama’s voice was very tender. “I
know how hard it is. I am old now, and this life and the next are very
close together. That is why I can let Torao go without a tear. But
when I let my husband go, it was different. Life was long then, and I
could not look forward to it without him. It has been long, but it has
been lived, and the happiness after all has been more than the sorrow.
Oh, Fuyu, we women must bear things bravely when they come to us, for
courage is in itself happiness.”
O Fuyu lifted her pretty face from behind her sleeves and bowed humbly.
“I was wrong, mother, to weep. I will be brave now,” she said simply,
and even as she spoke, she forced her trembling lips to smile.
“There speaks a daughter of the samurai!” Go Inkyo Sama smiled
approvingly. “And now, if Torao is so soon to leave us, we must prepare
all festival dishes for to-morrow. Call O Kō San, and we will make some
plans.”
So ended the dreaded interview, and Torao retired from his mother’s
presence to the refreshment of a hot bath and the loose Japanese
garments, while the women turned their thoughts from the burden of
great emotions to the restful details of petty household arrangements.
In the bustle of the morrow, when friends came and went all day making
farewell visits, when there were all the preparations for departure
to be made and all the arrangements for the little household in its
master’s absence, Go Inkyo Sama and O Fuyu San were calm, collected,
smiling. They set before each guest a tray of festival food. They
chatted and bowed and received with every sign of complete satisfaction
the conventional congratulations upon the honor that had come to them.
They acted their parts in a way worthy of their pride of race. And
though, when it was all over, and the _amado_ closed for the night,
O Fuyu could no longer control herself, and retired, for lack of a
better place in the small house, to the clothes-closet, there to pour
out her soul in tears, Torao, when he found her, a forlorn, crouching,
shaking heap, had no word of blame for her weakness, but drew her out
and comforted her, and brought back to her face at last a damp and
precarious smile.
In the gray of the morning they were all astir, and before the day had
fairly dawned the kuruma, with Tetsu standing beside it hat in hand,
was ready at the door. There were no tears, or sighs, or kisses; but
followed by many bows and tender smiles and low-breathed “Sayo naras,”
Torao passed out through the little lattice door and became a part of
the great war.
It was then that O Fuyu’s nerve gave way, and all day long Go Inkyo
Sama and O Kō San worked over her and petted her and comforted her; and
when night came and she was tucked away among the _futons_, she slept
at last, worn out with grief, nor knew anything more until the sound
of opening _amado_ roused her and O Kō San from their slumbers in the
chill before dawn. O Kō San bounded to her feet to see Go Inkyo Sama,
lantern in hand, wearing the conventional dress of ceremony, pattering
along the stone-paved walk to the street. Where was she going? and at
such an hour!
Shivering and frightened, O Fuyu San and O Kō San dressed and set
the house to rights, although it was only four o’clock, then sat and
awaited the old lady’s return. They talked in a desultory way of the
war, of the sufferings of the soldiers, of the ferocity and stupidity
of the Russians, and in the intervals of silence O Fuyu surreptitiously
wiped the tears from her eyes.
At last, about seven o’clock, when they were beginning to be worried
about her strange absence, Go Inkyo Sama came. She was smiling and
serene, but her worn face looked more worn, her slender shrunken body
more slender and shrunken. In response to their eager questioning, she
told them of her early morning visit to the shrine of Fudō.[15]
“It is time for me to pray,” she said simply, “and Fudō Sama is wise
and powerful. We all need strength and courage,--Torao and you, little
O Fuyu San, and I, so I shall ask it for us all every day.”
In the months that followed, Go Inkyo Sama never failed to rise at
four, and after a complete ceremonial cleansing in cold water, to
walk the three miles to the Fudō shrine, offer there her prayer, and
return in time for the day’s work, whatever it might prove to be. When
letters began to come from Torao, and he told of his life at Port
Arthur and of the terrible sufferings and great courage and enthusiasm
of the soldiers, Go Inkyo Sama added to her daily prayer for her own
a petition for all the soldiers of Nippon, and threw herself with
feverish energy into the relief work for the families left at home.
When, in July, the baby came,--a sturdy brown boy, so like his father
that he gave new courage and hope to mother and grandmother alike, she
took him as a direct answer to her prayers, and grew stronger than
ever in her faith. To the whole of the sad little household the baby
was a joy and a delight. “Gunjiri” (Soldier Boy), they called him while
they waited for the true name that his father should send him when
they had had time to hear from him; and the pet name clung even after
the baby had been formally carried to the temple and presented to the
tutelar god of the parish under his real name of Heitaro.
The days were never too long for Go Inkyo Sama and O Fuyu San, even
though they began at four o’clock, for there was always something
to do, and the baby furnished an unfailing subject of care and
conversation. When O Kō San carried him out to walk tied to her back,
the bereaved mother and grandmother would sit at home and talk about
his present charms, his future greatness, what his father would say
when he saw him, while their busy fingers flew over stockings that they
were knitting for the hard winter that the soldiers had ahead of them
in Manchuria, or on the sewing of hospital kimonos or clothes for the
orphaned children, or some other work of helpfulness for those who were
suffering for the country.
But when the baby came home, his little black slits of eyes usually
tightly closed, his head atilt like a sleepy flower on his slender
neck, there was a great rush to take him from O Kō San’s back, to
hug him and cuddle him and make much of him, and Go Inkyo Sama was
almost jealous of O Fuyu because it was to her at last that he must go
for food. But as she sat and watched the little mother, and saw the
ineffable tenderness of motherhood steal into the girlish face, her
heart would lose its soreness, and she would feel once more Torao’s
baby head pillowed on her own breast.
“It is what we are glad to give our lives for, isn’t it Fuyu?” she
would say; and Fuyu would smile and answer shyly, “It is, indeed!”
The long walks, even in the cool mornings of the hot summer days,
seemed to tell a little upon Go Inkyo Sama. She grew more delicate,
more worn, as her sweet old face grew more ethereal. O Fuyu, young and
inexperienced as she was, watched the change with anxiety, but could do
nothing.
“Mother,” she said one day, “do you feel quite well? Aren’t you tiring
yourself with your long days and your hard work?”
“Fuyu, can we speak of being tired when we know what our soldiers are
doing?” was all the answer that the old lady would give.
“But, mother, Torao told me to take care of you,” persisted the little
wife.
“Yes, child, I know, but we must do what we can for the brave men at
the front, and for the little ones they have left behind.”
Go Inkyo Sama’s eyes wandered lovingly to the brown baby lying asleep
on his quilt close beside her, one crumpled rose-leaf hand, palm
upward, thrust outside his wrapping. She leaned over and patted him,
and a tear fell and splashed on his unconscious cheek,--a tear that
Fuyu could not see.
As the autumn came on, and the mornings grew colder, there was no
relaxation of Go Inkyo Sama’s austerities. Every morning, long before
day, after the cold water purification, she trotted shivering through
the sleeping streets to the temple of her devotion, offered her prayer,
and returned, sometimes too tired to eat the warm soup and rice which
O Fuyu San set before her. But she was never too tired for the long
day of work, for a smile or a pleasant word to her daughter and to
O Kō San, for a hug and a pat to the baby, who grew stronger and
redder-cheeked every day.
Torao’s letters came regularly, telling not much about what was being
accomplished, but something of how they lived and how they fought, and
what they hoped and prayed might come from the daily sacrifice of
lives offered gladly for the Emperor. Go Inkyo Sama read them again and
again, sometimes aloud to O Fuyu San, sometimes alone in her room with
streaming eyes. “I will do my best,” he wrote, “and you must not grieve
if I change into a spirit at Port Arthur. Even though my perishable
body may nevermore be seen in this world, I shall not forget ‘loyalty
to our Emperor for seven lives.’”
By the end of October the weather had grown cold and bleak; the early
morning walk was taken through dark and silent streets with the aid of
a bobbing paper lantern.
“Let O Kō San go with you,” pleaded O Fuyu San.
“No, child, let O Kō San do her duty, this is mine;” and Go Inkyo Sama
set forth alone in the darkness.
Along the entrance-way to the great temple, between the rows of
shuttered booths that all the day long were gay with toys and notions,
and thronged by purchasers, she passed to the heavy gateway on either
side of which the gigantic figures of the Two Kings[16] glowered and
writhed behind their bars. The dying moon cast strange shadows, the
sweeping curves of the temple roof hung over the great lacquered
pillars and the dark spaces between. She paused before the shrine where
Fudō, the immovable, encircled by flames and carrying in his hands the
sword and the robe of justice, sat enthroned. As she knelt with bowed
head, closed eyes, and rosary rubbed between her folded palms, chanting
in subdued tones the invocation, her whole soul went out in the prayer
that Fudō, the immovably just and wise, might grant to her the wish of
her heart. She knelt longer than usual, in an ecstasy of devotion, and
when she reached home at last, it seemed to poor little anxious O Fuyu
San that she looked so frail, so ethereal, that the worn body could
scarcely do the will of the lofty spirit that was driving it on.
Go Inkyo Sama hardly tasted her breakfast, though O Fuyu San served it
daintily and urged the old lady to eat. At last the young wife retired
sorrowfully with the tray and the rice-bucket, handed them to O Kō San
in the kitchen, and stopped a few moments in her own room to look after
little Heitaro, asleep on his quilt in the corner. As she bent over him
she heard Go Inkyo Sama call,--
“Fuyu, come quickly! I must tell you something.”
O Fuyu slid open the door, and crouched at the threshold of the
mother’s room.
“Here I am, mother; what is it?”
Go Inkyo Sama’s face was very pale, her eyes were bright, her breath
came quickly. “O Fuyu, my prayer is granted. Torao will come home again
to you and the baby. All these months I have prayed to Fudō Sama that
he would let me die in Torao’s place, and to-day the time has come.”
She fell forward as she spoke and said no more. O Fuyu did all she
could. She put her to bed with O Kō San’s aid, and sent for the doctor,
the relatives, the near friends. All day there was coming and going at
the little house, and Go Inkyo Sama lay breathing faintly. At midnight
there came a change. The unconscious face was suddenly transfigured by
a radiant smile, and she sat up and spoke, knowing no one of all the
weeping relatives who knelt about her.
“Torao, come with me!” she said, and that was all.
Next day the great white lanterns[17] were hung before the door, and
little O Fuyu San offered the daily and hourly honors of food and
incense to the brave spirit that had passed so suddenly from sight.
“How can I ever tell Torao?” she said to herself again and again,
while the tears flowed unchecked, for there was no one to be made
sadder by her grief.
* * * * *
On the steep slope of a beleaguered Russian fortress, mingled with
heaps of dead and dying, lay Torao, breathing faintly through that long
October day. Above him shrieked and roared the shells of both sides,
about him fell from time to time stray bullets, but his ears were dull,
his eyes dim. The sun went down, the search-lights from the forts
played over the ghastly scene, the firing never ceased, and still he
lay unconscious of it all.
Then, from out the far distance,--a distance of hundreds of miles, it
seemed, and of years too remote for memory’s reach,--there came to him
a voice.
“Torao,” it said, “come with me.”
Slowly the languid eyes opened. A light that was neither search-light
nor rocket, but a clear, steady, bluish flame, was moving toward him.
Lazily he watched it, then sat up with a start. Was he dreaming, or was
he dying? How could she be here on this ghastly field of death? For
there before him was the beautiful young face of his boyhood; not worn
or lined, but smooth and fair and oval, the sweet lips smiling, the
velvet eyes searching through all that horrible place for him.
“Torao, come,” she said; and at the word, wounded, weak, bleeding, amid
the glare of search-lights, the hail of bullets, the boom of guns,
Torao rose to his feet, staggered forward, following the guidance of
his mother’s voice, and fell at last, safe from danger, behind the
shelter of an abandoned trench.
There they found him in the morning with a great hole in his side, but
still alive. When, two weeks later, there came to him in the hospital
at Dalny O Fuyu’s letter telling him of his mother’s death, he knew,
even as she had known, how Fudō answers prayer.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The present given to one who stays at home by a member of the
family returning from a pleasure trip.
[8] The paper lantern used as a night light.
[9] The heavy quilts used in making a Japanese bed.
[10] A bit of bright-colored paper folded about a strip of sea-weed and
slipped under the string of a present.
[11] The fire-pot used for heating purposes in a Japanese house.
[12] Go Inkyo Sama refers to the famous Satsuma Rebellion of 1877.
[13] The common people, as distinguished from the military or samurai
class.
[14] From the Imperial rescript to the soldiers.
[15] The Buddhist God of Wisdom. His name means “The Immovable.”
[16] Ni-ō, or “Two Kings,” Indra and Brahma, who keep guard at the
outer gates of Buddhist temples to scare away demons.
[17] White lanterns are hung before the door of a house where a death
has taken place, much as crape or black ribbon is used with us.
III
THE BLUE FLAME
The incident of this story is connected with the disastrous
“snow-march” of February, 1901, when the
Japanese army was testing its ability to meet Siberian
winter conditions.
It had been snowing for weeks in the province of Aomori, and the little
city was almost hidden under drifts. The mud-walled, boulder-covered
houses were white mounds, the streets were tunneled valleys. As you
looked down on the city from the hills above, you could see no signs of
life except the wreaths of blue smoke curling into the air.
And yet there was cheer and comfort enough in one of the quaint little
houses. O Yuki San was very busy with preparations to receive her
husband. She had built a big charcoal fire in the _kotatsu_,[18] for
she knew that he would be cold after his two days of snow-marching with
his company. In the kitchen the red-cheeked cookmaid was broiling
a fish over the coals, preparing a savory soup in a porringer, and
keeping an anxious eye on the big rice-pot, to make sure that the staff
of life was boiled just right, neither too hard nor too soft,--just as
the master liked to have it. O Yuki San must watch the cook, and see
that she did everything exactly as she should, and she must make ready
her husband’s tray with her own hands. Lovingly she placed in their
respective corners the porcelain rice-bowl, the lacquered soup-bowl,
the dainty plate on which the broiled fish was to be served, and the
chopsticks of clean white pine, joined together at the ends to show
that no one had ever used them.
Old Jiiya, the man-servant, decrepit but faithful, came in suddenly
out of the driving snow, as O Yuki San, on her knees in the matted end
of the kitchen, was cocking her head on one side to make sure that
her arrangement of the tray was quite symmetrical. He pulled his feet
noisily out of his clogs, and came down on the loosely rattling boards
of the floor in a crouching position at the sight of his mistress.
“It’s a cold night, mistress!” he ejaculated, by way of greeting, and
dropped his face between his hands on the floor.
“Yes, Jiiya, it is cold, and how it snows! When do you think your
master will come?”
Jiiya’s face came up for a moment. “It is thought at the garrison that
the troops may be in at any time now. They had only fifteen miles to
march to-day, and they would start early. The master will probably be
here in a few minutes more.”
O Yuki San rose to her feet. “There, the tray is finished!” she said.
“O Kayo, when you hear the master’s voice, bring in his supper; and,
Jiiya, be ready to help him off with his boots as soon as he comes, for
they will be wet and stiff.”
Jiiya and O Kayo bowed low, and murmured the “Saio de gozaimasu”[19]
with which the respectful Japanese servant always receives his master’s
commands; and O Yuki San returned to her little sitting-room. On the
floor in one corner lay a little heap of bright-colored comfortables. O
Yuki San bent over it, turning back the quilts that she might see the
round, rosy face, the crumpled, slender hands, and the closely shaven
head of her baby boy.
“Oh, baby, how you sleep!” she said. “Don’t you know that papa’s coming
home to-night?”
She patted him lightly, and he smiled and gurgled in his sleep; then
she covered him tenderly and made a tour of the room. The hanging
scroll on the wall bore a picture of a plum-tree in blossom, sign
of the spring that was only one month away,--for even in Aomori the
plum-trees blossom in March,--and sign, too, of long life and good luck
and happiness. That was why the little wife had taken it to-day from
the fireproof storehouse and hung-it up to greet her husband on his
return. “He will want to think about the spring when he comes in all
tired and cold from his snow-march,” she had said to herself as she
unrolled it. She laughed gleefully now as she looked at the picture,
and sang a little song that had been running in her head all day,--
“When the spring wind is blowing sharp and chill,
Like snowflakes fall the plum-blooms on the hill.”
“Snowflakes now,” she said to herself, “but plum-blooms next month for
all of us!”
There was a sound at the outer door, and the sliding lattice flew
sharply back. “He has come, Jiiya,” called O Yuki San, as she hurried
to the door and flung it wide. She could see the gold-trimmed soldier
cap as her husband fumbled with his boots. “Let Jiiya help you,” she
said; “he is right here.”
He raised his head and she saw his bearded face. It was so white that
it frightened her. The beard was covered with snow, and icicles dripped
from the hair and eyebrows.
“Come in! Come in!” she cried. “Never mind the boots or the snow. You
are freezing. Come in and let me warm you.”
He looked at her strangely, and his eyes were sunken and dull. Jiiya,
who had come around the house, and was bowing obsequiously in the
doorway, started and turned pale. The master sat down, and Jiiya seized
his boots, but the feet were like stones and the boots would not come
off. O Yuki San, wild with anxiety, pushed and pulled her husband into
the sitting-room, made him sit down by the _kotatsu_, and pulled the
warm comfortables about him. The baby moaned in his sleep, but she had
no time to hush him now. She hurried to the kitchen to bring the tray,
saying to the red-cheeked cook, “Hurry! Hurry! He is so cold! He will
die if you do not hurry!”
Jiiya came shuffling in at the back door just as she took the tray from
the hands of the cook and hastened away with it.
“What is the matter with the master?” asked O Kayo of Jiiya.
The old man shook his head doubtfully. “It is hard to say,” was his
noncommittal answer. “Strange things happen in this world.--Hark! What
is that?”
A shriek rent the air, and another, and then another. Man and maid
stood for a moment looking at each other, then Jiiya started to the
rescue. Flinging wide the paper screen that separated the kitchen from
the sitting-room, they saw nothing there but the baby, who, wakened
by the sounds, had rolled out of his comfortables and lay kicking and
screaming on the floor. The door beyond was open, and they heard the
mistress calling, “Jiiya, come quick! He is gone!” Out through the open
door into the snow tunnel that joined the house to the street, they
went, seeking. A pale blue flame danced in the tunnel, the mistress lay
on her face in the snow, stretching her arms toward the dancing light.
“He was here, and then there was nothing, only that light,” she cried,
and her head fell and she knew no more. The flame danced and flickered
and disappeared, and with it went the light of O Yuki San’s life.
* * * * *
Four days later, when the news began to come in of the disaster that
had overtaken the snow-march, and the first and only men saved from
that terrible tragedy were brought back, maimed and almost dead from
the long exposure, Lieutenant Maruki told to some of his fellow
officers all that he knew of the death of Lieutenant Saito.